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Inventory of the Thomas H. Gray Collection, 1874-1945
MS 36
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Table of contents
Title: Thomas H. Gray Collection,
Date (inclusive): 1874-1945
Collection number: MS 36
Creator:
Gray, Thomas H.
Extent: 1 document box
Repository:
California State Railroad Museum Library
Sacramento, California 95814
Shelf location: Big Four Building or off-site storage. Please contact
the Library in advance of your visit.
Language:
English.
Zoe Martin, 1996
Copyright has not been assigned to the California State Railroad Museum. All requests for
permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Senior
Curator. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the CSRM as the owner of the
physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder,
which must also be obtained by the reader.
[Identification of item], Thomas H. Gray Collection, MS 36, California State Railroad Museum Library, Sacramento, California.
The collection consists of news clippings chronicling Gray's contributions to railroad safety and obituaries from various
sources marking his death. Also included is correspondence, primarily between C.J. Corliss and Thomas Gray's children in 1945.
Mr. Gray's leather-bound notebook, kept approximately between 1874 and 1891, contains sketches for several railroad-related
objects, including a crossing sign, warehouse doors, a baggage car floor grating, a tool box, and a caboose ladder. Notes
on prices, materials, loans of materials, and mathematical formulas are also scattered throughout the notebook, which is less
than half-used. Two photographs complete the collection.
Thomas Gray (March 22, 1846, Toronto, Canada - January 16, 1935, Burlingame, California) worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad
in San Francisco, California from 1876 to 1916. According to Southern Pacific, Gray, and Gray's children, he invented the
widely-used "Stop, Look & Listen" crossing sign in 1884. Correspondence included in this collection from C.J. Corliss, a manager
in the Public Relations office of the Association of American Railroads in 1945, suggests an alternate origin.